-Press Release from Centre for Budget Analysis (CBGA) and Jan Awaaz New Delhi, 29 November 2014: There have been a number of media reports recently around possible cuts in Union Budget allocations for the current fiscal 2014-15 in case of social sector programmes, i.e. reductions in allocations in the Revised Estimates (RE) for 2014-15 as compared to the Budget Estimates (BE) that were made in July this year. This issue deserves...
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Govt. LPG subsidy capped at Rs. 20 a kg -Puja Mehra
-The Hindu The Union government has also decided to resume providing subsidy on cooking gas through direct cash transfers straight into consumers' bank accounts. The Modi government has frozen the budget subsidy for cooking gas at Rs. 20 a kg. This will not mean any increase in price for the consumer right away. However, if international prices were to rise, as they normally do in winter, then the government will be faced with...
More »Dangerous withdrawal -Prabhat Patnaik
-The Telegraph The National Democratic Alliance government is planning to scrap the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. The chief minister of Rajasthan, Vasundhara Raje, had already asked for the employment programme of the MGNREGA under which the state was obliged to provide employment on demand (failing which an unemployment allowance of a specified amount had to be paid), to be downgraded to a mere "food-for-work" programme, where the state...
More »National food security gets lukewarm response from states -Sanjeeb Mukherjee & Vrishti Beniwal
-The Business Standard States drag feet on even extended deadline for implementation; with Centre also worried on fiscal deficit, extension likely The National Food Security Act (NFSA) is still getting a lukewarm response from a majority of states. An extended deadline for implementing the law will expire in about a month and the Centre would have to give more time. Barring the nine states and two Union Territories (UTs) which introduced a food...
More »Union Budget: Contours & Dimensions -Sona Mitra
-Yojana It would be good for the government not to pay much attention to the misconceived theories that public provisioning for the poor is equivalent to ‘populism' and would lead to higher fiscal deficit and low GDP. On the other hand, steps to improve public provisioning of basic necessities would definitely augur well for the overall growth of the economy by bringing down the levels of social and economic inequalities and...
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